Pick-and-place machines are well known and widely used in the populating of printed circuit boards or cards (PCBs) by components using surface mount technology (SMT). They offer the capability of precision in component placement, and speed in picking up a component from its source and placing it typically on a solder-paste covered pad on the PCB. Often the components are removed from small receptacles on a tape carrier. Components have been also supplied on a strip unreeled from a reel supplied to the PCB maker by the component supplier. U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,430 describes a feeder actuated by a pick-and-place machine for components connected to each other at their base to form a strip, which patent disclosure is hereby incorporated by reference. Our related commonly owned patent application Ser. No. 10/027,869, also describes a feeder for a pick-and-place machine for components connected to form a strip, which patent disclosure is also hereby incorporated by reference. With this strip of components such as pins or posts, the beveled end of the pin or post which is adapted to be picked up the conventional vacuum nozzle of a standard pick-and-place machine, after separation from its neighbor from the strip, is positioned at an appropriate pickup location with its base down and thus the beveled pickup end rises free of the base and free of adjacent components ready for pickup. However, neither of these references describes a feeder capable of separating a component from its receptacle on a carrier tape and placement of the separated component at the pickup location.
Moreover, when the base of the pin to be picked up is symmetrical, say round, with respect to its vertical axis, then the orientation of the base relative to the pad on which it is to be placed is unimportant. However, when the base is non-symmetrical, for example, non-round, then it may be desired that a particular axis of the base such as the long axis of the base is aligned with the long axis of the pad, or that the base have a specific orientation with respect to a square pad. Then it is important that the pin retain its orientation with respect to the nozzle when it is picked up. With conventional nozzles, this is not always possible, because air flow through small nozzles creates a natural vortex causing components being drawn into the nozzle to spin on their axis.